


Dying is easy, Living is Harder

by Anonymous



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AOS Angst War 2020, Angst, F/M, Foster Care, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27440866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Daisy Johnson had an ability- she could see the exact amount of hours until a person died. Six digits hovering above everyone's heads. She used to think it was a gift, and now she knew that it was a curse. She was behind a glass wall, watching as people on the other side slowly ran out of time, screaming and pounding at the wall and trying to help them but she couldn’t.She couldn’t help them, so she stopped trying.
Relationships: Deke Shaw/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy johnson & her trauma
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Go to end notes for trigger warnings.

Daisy Johnson had a supernatural ability.

A true power, if you could call it that. Not something like a prodigal talent for art or dancing, but something rare, surreal. Out of a fantasy novel.

Daisy, since as long as she could remember, could see the exact date a person would die. It would hover like a weight above everybody’s heads. Six smoky numbers, barely tangible. If she looked straight at them they’d almost disappear, but they were always there, above people’s heads like a ticking clock.

She hadn’t really understood what they meant for a while. Not when she’d been young. 

“Daddy?” She’d asked one day, sitting on the floor with a notebook and sloppily coloring in a pony. “What do those numbers mean?”

Her father had turned to her from his spot on the couch, his blue eyes crinkling into a smile- his eyes were electric bright, she remembered that- and chuckled. “What numbers, Daisy?”

“Over your head?”

“Hmm.” He made a show of looking up above him. “I don’t see any numbers, baby.”

“Right there!” Daisy insisted.

“Okay, what do they say?”

“Umm, 000575?”

“Oh. Well, Daisy, I love your imagination, but I don’t see any numbers. Why don’t you draw some more ponies?”

Daisy shrugged and went back to doodling. Her dad had said it was nothing, and she believed him.

A little bit later, about an hour later, the number was 000574.

And then it was 000573.

And then days passed, 24 days, and still nobody believed her about the numbers no matter how many times she brought it up. The numbers were rapidly counting down. The numbers only she could see.

24 days passed, and her father left to go to work, just like any other workday. His number was 000007.

And then it was 000001.

And then the phone rang.

“Your husband was in a car crash,” they told her mother. “Complete freak accident.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” they told her mother. “Nobody saw it coming.”

But Daisy did.

She thought that maybe when the countdown ended, something good would happen. Like a gift, or a surprise party! Daisy _loved_ surprise parties. She was almost excited for the countdown to end. Maybe her dad would come home with a new dog, or he’d come with a new princess costume like the one she’d been asking for.

But instead, he didn’t come home at all.

It took two more years and her mother’s death for her to truly understand her ability. 

Six digits. Representing hours left in a person’s life. When they all reached 0, the person was dead. Daisy had never seen it turn 0 herself, but she knew from enough times learning a person had passed that the numbers were never wrong.

She knew because it happened again, with her mother. 

Nobody believed her, so she stopped saying anything about it. Maybe she was the crazy one. 

(But she wasn't.)

Then she was eight, in foster care, wanting nothing but one more second with her mother and scared out of her mind because all she had left was a pillowcase and her stuffed bear and all of a sudden she could only see numbers. Everybody’s numbers. They stuffed her head when she laid in bed at night. Never changing except to count down every hour.

Daisy missed not knowing what they meant. 

She quickly learned how to approximate the number of days and years left in others’ lives. About 720 hours equaled a month. A year was 8760.

(A girl in the group home got adopted, once, and she was beaming as she left with her new parents. Her number had been 000398.)

Daisy always looked in the mirror every day, but she had no number. The space above her head was completely empty. It had always been. 

She used to think she could change the dates. Give the people more time. She believed that she had been chosen with this gift.

Now she knew that it was simply a curse. A curse letting her witness the pain of so many and be unable to help. She was behind a glass wall, watching as people on the other side slowly ran out of time, screaming and pounding at the wall and trying to help them but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t help them, so she stopped trying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check end notes for trigger warnings if you have triggers.

Years passed.

She would go to new foster families and be sent back to the group home because she was rowdy, clingy, and ungrateful.

But she was just lonely.

And sorry. She was really sorry. But none of her pleading, broken sorrys would get them to keep her.

The nuns told her that God was a benevolent and merciful being watching over them all. They said he handcrafted each human to serve a purpose.

Daisy decided that God created her to suffer.

A man named Mike took her in with a number of 000031. A little over a day left in his life. He seemed nice enough and gave her pretty clothes so she mourned that he would be gone so soon.

Then it was night and her pants were off and everything hurt and she found herself somehow back in her childhood home with her parents, who were hugging her and telling her not to be afraid. Loud, loud booms from men in blue that came with their flashlights and guns and sirens that made her ears feel like they were bleeding and flashing cameras and microphones in her face were all she knew. She had been in the center of a crime scene and it constantly brought back up memories to see it and yet it was her body and she couldn‘t escape. She began to hate mirrors, hate seeing the empty space above her head and seeing her arms and legs that Mike had called gorgeous and slender. She hid the body he’d called perfect for him and covered it with scars, scars of red and eventually white. Scars that didn’t erase her pain, just muffled it.

He called her gorgeous so she mutilated herself.

He said he loved her belly rolls so she starved herself, starved away the memory of him kissing her above her navel.

He said she was _such a good girl_ , so she recoiled at any praise.

He raped her, and she was broken.

She had nobody on her side so she was dropped right back off at the group home with an empty head and broken body. Everything was not okay but the severely under qualified therapist at the orphanage gave her a lollipop and told her to stop being so sad.

But she wasn’t sad. 

She just wasn’t anything.

Mel and Phil adopted her when she was sixteen and her empty eyes reflected ticking zeroes. She twitched when she was touched and she didn't speak. They adopted a malfunctioning burden of a girl- and somehow they still loved her. 

Mel taught her self-defense so she could protect herself from the Mikes in her world and Phil taught her that she could be worth something. They both had patience, and for that she was grateful.

Mel was 280325 and Phil was 220489 when Daisy met them. They both had over twenty five years left in their lives, and Daisy silently thanked whoever or whatever had given her this power for giving them time, something she discovered was impossible to get more of.

She never went to college after high school, her mental health fragile and unable to take on the stress. She just took a break. She volunteered at shelters and food banks and lived with her parents until the day they gave her a bank account they’d been saving since they adopted her and told her to follow the path that she felt was right.

So she moved to Los Angeles. She dyed her hair black, cut it short, and found a small apartment above a bar where she could live comfortably with her monsters.

She was alone except for her trauma, and she found that she didn’t mind. She couldn’t handle falling in love with somebody and knowing when she’d lose them. It’d be too much.

So for two years, she was quietly living above the bar, watching as leaves grew and fell outside of her window. She talked little, except to buy fresh food from the market near the beach and to call her parents.

She was still broken, and nowhere near at peace, but one could say she was content.

And then she met Deke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: rape, implied rape, implied depression, implied cutting

**Author's Note:**

> TW: mentions of death


End file.
